The number of major retail investors in the local stock market in the second quarter was the highest in the past five quarters as surging share prices attracted more big investors, data compiled by the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) showed on Monday.
A total of 2,427 “big players” participated in the main board in the April-to-June quarter, up from 1,736 in the previous quarter and the most since the 2,799 major investors in the first quarter of last year, the exchange’s data showed.
A “big player” is defined as an investor who trades at least NT$500 million (US$16.13 million) in shares on the TWSE in a single quarter.
Photo: I-Hwa Cheng, Bloomberg
Last quarter’s number increased by 39.8 percent from the previous quarter as more investors were drawn into local equities ranging from semiconductors to cloud computing and smart manufacturing when the TAIEX rallied on artificial intelligence hype from May to last month.
In the second quarter, the number of “mid-sized players” — or retail investors with quarterly turnover of between NT$100 million and NT$500 million — increased by 4,935 to 20,546, also the highest since the first quarter of last year, when it reached 21,926, TWSE data showed.
Meanwhile, the number of retail investors with quarterly trading of less than NT$100 million totaled 4.16 million last quarter, representing a sequential increase of 308,195 and the highest since the second quarter of last year, when it totaled 4.17 million, the data showed.
Such figures are seen as an important indicator of investor confidence in Taiwanese equities, as total market turnover on the main board jumped to NT$16 trillion in the second quarter, up 33.33 percent from NT$12 trillion in the first quarter, the exchange said.
Average daily turnover was NT$269.73 billion in the second quarter, increasing by 23.43 percent from an average of NT$218.53 billion three months earlier, TWSE data showed.
Retail investors accounted for 58.2 percent of the market’s turnover in the second quarter, up from 57.71 percent in the first quarter, while foreign institutional investors made up 30.93 percent, down from 31.53 percent. Local institutional investors represented the remaining 10.87 percent, up from 10.76 percent, the TWSE said.
The TAIEX yesterday closed down 106.38 points, or 0.61 percent, at 17,227.91. The index has risen 21.86 percent since the beginning of the year.
TRADE WAR: Tariffs should also apply to any goods that pass through the new Beijing-funded port in Chancay, Peru, an adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump said A veteran adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump is proposing that the 60 percent tariffs that Trump vowed to impose on Chinese goods also apply to goods from any country that pass through a new port that Beijing has built in Peru. The duties should apply to goods from China or countries in South America that pass through the new deep-water port Chancay, a town 60km north of Lima, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, an adviser to the Trump transition team who served as senior director for the western hemisphere on the White House National Security Council in his first administration. “Any product going
High above the sparkling surface of the Athens coastline, the cranes for building the 50-floor luxury tower centerpiece of Greece’s future “smart city” look out over the Saronic Gulf. At their feet, construction machinery stirs up dust. Its backers say the 8 billion euro (US$8.43 billion) project financed by private funds is a symbol of Greece’s renaissance after the years of financial stagnation that saw investors flee the country. However, critics see it more as a future “ghetto for the rich.” It is hard to imagine that 10km from the Acropolis, a new city “three times the size of Monaco”
STRUGGLING BUSINESS: South Korea’s biggest company and semiconductor manufacturer’s buyback fuels concerns that it could be missing out on the AI boom Samsung Electronics Co plans to buy back about 10 trillion won (US$7.2 billion) of its own stock over the next year, putting in motion one of the larger shareholder return programs in its history. South Korea’s biggest company would repurchase the stock in stages over the coming 12 months, it said in a regulatory filing on Friday. As a first step, it would buy back about 3 trillion won of paper starting today up until February next year, all of which it would cancel. The board would deliberate on how best to effect the remaining 7 trillion won of buybacks. The move
In a red box factory that stands out among the drab hills of the West Bank, Chat Cola’s employees race to quench Palestinians’ thirst for local products since the Gaza war erupted last year. With packaging reminiscent of Coca-Cola’s iconic red and white aluminum cans, Chat Cola has tapped into Palestinians’ desire to shun brands perceived as too supportive of Israel. “The demand for [Chat Cola] increased since the war began because of the boycott,” owner Fahed Arar said at the factory in the occupied West Bank town of Salfit. Julien, a restaurateur in the city of Ramallah further south,
RSS